Mysterious flowers on the grave of an unmarried prince
´A mon cher epoux´ (To my beloved husband) is written on a ribbon that was attached to a flowerarangement that was placed on the grave of Pricne Charles in the Royal Crypt of Laeken. How is that possible, as far as is known Charles was never married.
It was Kucien De Cock, author of two books on burial places and burial rituals who discovered the ribbon sunday afternoon in the Crypt of Laeken. ´I was watching the flowers on the garve of King Baudouin but it was the large flower arrangement on Prince Charels´ tomb that caught my attention. I was completely surprised about the text ´A mon cher epoux´, to my beloved husband? Prince Charles never married, right?
Silent as a grave
Indeed, Prince Charles never officially married. Her wanted to, in the late 30-ties with Jaqueline Wehrli, a daughter of a baker from Brussels but his brother Leopold III forbade the marriage. A prince that married a girl who wasn´t a royal, not even an aristocrat, that was impossible. Charles and Jacqueline got a daughter in 1938. he wanted to adopt her but that wasn´t allowed either. An arranged marriage came from this, Jacqueline married a retired militair and Charles´daughter would be known as Isabelle Wybo.
Charles had a lot of friends, sometimes even several at the same time. There is a story that in his house at Raversijde he received the young Karine Vernooy while in a caravan in his garden a Dancer from Brussels, Renée Damoiseau was waiting for him.
But now there was supposed to be a real marriage. Supposed, as no prove was ever given for it. On September 14th 1977 he might have been married a Jacquenline de Peyrebrune in Paris. He met her during the war in the resistance, he was Monsieur Richard, she Madame Schaak. Charles himself never said a word about the marriage, documents that would prove that a marriage had taken place disappeared and the Belgian court doesn´t say a word about this marriage: ´no comment´.
But who gave the flowers that were placed on the tomb of Charles? In the royal crypt nobody is allowed to say a word about it. Lucien de Cock: ´They have to know because you can not just leave flowers at a grave´.
The flowers